About Me

Known principally for his weekly political columns and his commentaries on radio and television, Chris Trotter has spent most of his adult life either engaging in or writing about politics. He was the founding editor of The New Zealand Political Review (1992-2005) and in 2007 authored No Left Turn, a political history of New Zealand. Living in Auckland with his wife and daughter, Chris describes himself as an “Old New Zealander” – i.e. someone who remembers what the country was like before Rogernomics. He has created this blog as an archive for his published work and an outlet for his more elegiac musings. It takes its name from Bowalley Road, which runs past the North Otago farm where he spent the first nine years of his life. Enjoy.

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Followers

Friday, 29 October 2010

Critical Failure

Put your money where your mouth is, Phil: The Labour Leader's failure to come out swinging on 20 October in defence of the labour movement in general, and NZ Actors Equity in particular, ceded the political advantage to Sir Peter Jackson, Warner Bros. and their National Party allies. To guarantee its long-term credibility, Labour must rediscover the courage to endure short-term unpopularity.

SIR PETER JACKSON surely deserves another academy award for his masterful direction of The Making of The Hobbit. Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens similarly merit an Oscar for their superb script. And, of course, Sir Richard Taylor and his team at Weta Workshops must be honoured for their amazing special effects. (The "protest march" down Lambton Quay and the "rally" in Civic Square were both superb examples of the PR illusionist’s art.

Less impressive, however, has been the labour movement’s critical response to Sir Peter Jackson’s production.

Coming straight off a remarkably successful Labour Party conference and into a week where the core values of the New Zealand labour movement were about to be given mass reaffirmation at CTU-organised "Fairness at Work" rallies across the country, Phil Goff should have been champing at the rhetorical bit.

Because, let’s face it, if the Leader of the Opposition can’t persuade the rest of New Zealand to join Labour and the CTU in reaffirming the values of fairness, solidarity and egalitarianism. Well then, he’s not going to be elected Prime Minister – is he?

Now, to be fair to Phil, I don’t think he could have anticipated everything that took place on the day of the CTU rallies.

For a start, his contacts in the CTU would almost certainly have let him know that the industrial relations problems afflicting The Hobbit had been all but resolved. And only the most cynical of union negotiators could have anticipated the DHB bosses’ self-defeating decision to publicly trash all chance of a settlement in their dispute with the medical radiographers and hospital lab technicians.

Even so, Sir Peter’s dire warnings about the imminent fate of The Hobbit on the morning of Wednesday, 20 October, followed up a couple of hours later by Fran Walsh’s and Phillipa Boyens’ utterances on Radio NZ’s Nine-to-Noon programme, should have alerted the Leader of the Opposition’s Office that something potentially very damaging was afoot.

Clearly, a whole new drama was being overlaid across the drama of thousands of trade unionists turning out to demand "Fairness at Work". If all of the sweat and effort that had gone into mobilising so many union members was not to be utterly wasted, both wings of the labour movement needed to reposition themselves – and quickly – to meet their opponents’ surprise attack.

This they did not do.

Though the agreement she thought she’d negotiated in good faith between NZ Actors Equity, Sir Peter, SPADA and the studio bosses was clearly being shredded before her eyes, the CTU President, Helen Kelly, nobly attempted to stick the pieces back together.

Meanwhile, the Leader of the Opposition’s Office, like a possum caught in the headlights of an oncoming Mack truck, made no visible attempt to avoid the looming collision. Terrified at the prospect of having to attack a national "icon" like Sir Peter, they simply closed their eyes and hoped that the fearsome anti-union juggernaut now bearing down on the entire labour movement would somehow miss them.

Then Sir Richard unleashed his special effects – with devastating results.

At this point it should have been clear to both labour leaders that their forces were sustaining enormous losses. Constrained by the legal and moral undertakings pursuant to her agreement with the Hollywood moguls, Ms Kelly’s options were limited. But with Parliament in session, Mr Goff could have made full use of parliamentary privilege to launch a devastating counterattack against Sir Peter and his growing chorus of anti-union acolytes.

By refusing to fight back, the Opposition transformed what was rapidly escalating into a full-scale, Government-led attack on the entire union movement into a complete rout. In the absence of unassailable Labour counter-arguments, the mainstream news media stuck slavishly to Sir Peter’s anti-union script.

The week, which had begun with such high hopes for organised labour’s triumph, ended with its total, ignominious and unnecessary defeat.

If The Hobbit offers its audiences even half as much white-knuckle excitement, its box office takings will be huge.

This essay was originally published in The Dominion Post, The Timaru Herald, The Taranaki Daily News, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Evening Star of Friday, 29 October 2010.

9 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Thanks Chris - that's an insightful perspective.

It's really quite amazing to witness the dearth of leftwing political leaders standing up for workers rights in this saga. While I obviously don't have a lot of faith in the parliamentarians that call themselves "leftwing", I've still been a bit shocked that so many of them have sat of the fence. For weeks this important struggle has been unfolding, with hardly a statement from so-called leaders. And it's not just Labour - where have Metiria Turei and Russel Norman been? Are they really so useless and disconnected from the labour movement? It seems so. But maybe I've missed something - I'd be interested to be pointed to where Labour and Green MPs have been jumping into the debate on behalf of the workers.

In the meantime, here's a link to my blog post on the matter and also Scott Hamilton's excellent post:

The gobsmacking irony is that Goff has been desperately trying to convince the electorate (against prevailing public opinion) that he is strong and that he is a leader.

So we've had the photo-ops on motorcycles, the babbling about chain saws and that strange swagger thing. We've had the inane apology about showerheads and other trivialities, which from a founding member of rogernomics was just plain insulting to the many hwo have been directly harmed by it.

But it's never occurred to him or his advisors that the best, the only way to demonstrate strength and leadership is to be strong and to lead.

If Phil Goff was John Key he`d do just what John Key did...the Labour Party has never made it back from the neoliberal wasteland that they consigned us all to...and it never will...and old Rogergnomes will never change their spots...

Please correct me if I'm wrong but in this case NZ Actors Equity are more than a little outnumbered by the workers in this not so little drama? ... and perhaps not poor enough for Labour to bother championing?